Vietnam seeks to deploy India’s model for a digital economy in order to boost its own information technology landscape. This will be done through a closer cooperation between the two countries which would result in Indian IT companies invest in Vietnam and provide advisory for the Vietnam IT sector and the government.

On March 29, representatives of the Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India to establish a joint working group on the issue.

Plans are to enable Vietnam to push economic development on the lines of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India and e-governance initiatives.

“Vietnam would like to tap into the experience of India in the delivery of digital services, law management and cyber security as this will help in the economic development of the country,” Vietnam’s information and communication minister Truong Minh Tuan Tuan said.

Apart from information security and related technology, policy development and e-government, Vietnam is also interested in India’s projects of extending digital connectivity, especially to people in rural areas.

Apart from that, India would also engage in skills training for IT personnel in Vietnam which has a requirement of around one million IT engineers to meet the targets of its digital and e-governance initiatives, but just 600,000 people are currently working on several digital initiatives.

Vietnam also wants to train its government officers on e-governance and wants to build IT-enabled smart cities just like India plans to do.

Vietnam has a population of 90 million, and nearly 70 per cent of its people are on the Internet while nearly 90 per cent of all its computers are connected to the web. Vietnam also has about 52 million Facebook users, 21 million of which access social networks through mobile devices. The IT sector in the country has a significantly higher annual growth rate compared to other industries and is generating revenue of close to $40 billion, representing 25 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP.